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Inside The Bills

New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick gave Jim Schwartz his first NFL job while he was head coach of the Cleveland Browns back in 1993. Schwartz had a jack-of-all-trades position that involved college and pro scouting while also being assigned with special projects by Belichick. The long time Patriots coach called Schwartz one of the most impressive young coaches he’s ever had working under him back in 2010 leading up to a game in which his Patriots were to square off against Schwartz’s Lions team.

“He was very impressive. Jim’s a really smart guy. He can handle a lot of assignments. He can keep a lot of balls in the air at the same time,” Belichick told MLive back in 2010. “He can manage a lot of different things and know where he is on all of them and have the foresight to figure out if he’s doing something — if he’s not getting the results that I would be looking for — to come to me and say, ‘You know, I think we should look at this instead of that,’ or, ‘I know what you’re looking for, I don’t think this is going to quite get it, how about if we look at it this way or how about if we do it that way?’

“He’s a very creative guy. He got along great with everybody. He worked hard. He just was a tremendous asset to the program, and it doesn’t really surprise me that he’s done as well as he has.”

Belichick later helped Schwartz land an assistant job under Jeff Fisher with the Tennessee Titans back in 1999. A year later, Belichick wanted to hire him as an assistant for his New England staff, but Fisher wanted to hold onto Schwartz himself because he was expecting then defensive coordinator Gregg Williams to land the Bills head coaching job, which he did. Schwartz then succeeded Williams in Tennessee as defensive coordinator.